


"what do you want to watch?"

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [45]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Little Sisters, Protective Older Brothers, Protective Siblings, Pseudo-Parenting, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, sibling relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:02:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21851116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Bertie Wells steps into the shoes of his parents to pseudo-parent his younger sister, budding detective Daisy Wells.Modern AUWritten for the forty-fifth prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Bertie Wells & Daisy Wells
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	"what do you want to watch?"

“I have been doing some investigating, Squinty.”

I start at the voice and lower my book to see my little sister sitting at the foot of my bed in her white nightdress, sprigged with lace down the front alongside the buttons. My dear sister has her golden-handled hairbrush in her hand, her long and golden hair in a damp tangle over one shoulder and her enormous sky-blue eyes fixed on my face in a childishly-curious way.

“What is it, Squashy?” I ask, setting down my copy of _Love, Simon_ to give my sister my full attention. “What have you figured out?”

“I don’t think Mummy likes me very much.”

I gawk at my sister, at her knotted golden hair and her teary bright eyes, and the slouch of her posture that drags her entire body down into a small ball of crumpled sadness, her arms around her knees and her feet tucked under her small body.

I had that realisation when I was small but I never thought that I would have to watch Daisy go through the same sudden epiphany. “I don’t think she likes me much either, Daisy.”

“Why not?”

I pat the duvet in front of me. “Come sit here, Squashy.” When I pull her back between my legs, she slumps against my chest with a heavy sigh.

“Why, Bertie?”

“Give me your hairbrush, Daisy,” I tell her, taking it out of her hand and beginning to brush the long hair that is falling over her shoulder. _I’m thirteen_ , I tell myself as I stroke the brush through my eight-year-old sister’s hair. _This is not my job._ “Sometimes, Squashy, mummies and daddies don’t know how to be mummies and daddies. You don’t have to take any classes or read any books: you don’t have to be qualified. That means that Mummy and Daddy are just fumbling through being parents and it turns out that neither of them are very good at it.”

“But Daddy is good!” she protests, leaning away from me to turn and look into my eyes. For the first time in a while, I see my own face in hers: rosy cheeks, thin eyebrows, golden hair, and an angry, hard set in her jaw. I pretend not to notice that she didn’t say that our mother is good too.

I reach out a hand and touch her rosy cheek with my free hand. “Daddy is a good person, Daisy. He’s a good person who believes hundreds of amazing things, but that doesn’t make him a good daddy. You’re a good… your Hazel is a good person, isn’t she?”

“The best a person can be,” she says in the most earnest voice somebody can use. “There nobody better than Hazel Wong, she is good and kind and wonderful and intelligent.”

“Is Hazel good at sports?”

With a snort, Daisy says, “No! She is stumbly and awkward and she _can’t_ do sports at all! She gets huffy and out of breath, and teachers take pity on her and let her referee the game instead.” After a pause, she realises my comparison. “Ooooh.”

“See, lovely?” Shifting backwards, I start to brush the rest of her hair. “Mummy and Daddy just aren’t very good at being mummies and daddies. Although Daddy may be a good person, that does not make him cut out to be a parent.”

“I don’t think Mummy is very good at _all_. Not a good person, or a good parent.”

Hearing Daisy say that lifts a weight from my chest. “She is a silly person sometimes, isn’t she, Daisy?”

Shaking her head, she says, “Not _just_ silly. I don’t think that she likes Daddy very much, either.”

“I don’t think that she does, Daisy.” I wrap my arms underneath her arms and pull her tight against my chest. “This happens with parents. It’s awful, but it does.”

With a frown that I know displays the wrinkle at the top of her nose. “I _know_ , Bertie. I am not an idiot. Not all families are _normal_. Kitty has a normal mummy and a normal daddy who are kind as anything. Lavinia’s parents are divorced, Beanie’s mummy is sick as anything, the Pritchett twins have two mummies, and Hazel has a daddy, mummy and step-mummy at the same time, and they all live in the same house. It is just awful that it is happening to our family too.”

Daisy is more clever than I recall. “I know, Daisy. I do try to understand how intelligent you are but it is beyond my own comprehension.”

“Mummy doesn’t know what tomorrow is,” Daisy tells me after a moment of pause. “Squinty, can you believe it? Daddy asked me if I still believe in Santa but… but Mummy did not even remember!”

“I’m glad you don’t believe in Santa anymore,” I tell her, stroking her golden hair with one hand. “I don’t have to pretend to be Santa and put the presents under the tree.”

“Mummy has gone out,” she says. “With her ‘friend’. Mr Curtis.”

“Ah, Denis.” My hand stills in her hair before starting to move again. “We know all about Mr Curtis, don’t we?”

“Yes. I want somebody to murder him so that I can detect.”

It is _such_ a Daisy thing to say.

“Go and grab a book, Daisy. I’ll read to you.”

She grumbles. “Not _now_! It’s only six o’clock!”

With a laugh, I sweep up Daisy in my arms and swing her around. “I know you’re a little old for stories now, Daisy, but I’ll read you _Matilda_.”

“Can we watch a film first?” she begs, turning her enormous eyes on me pleadingly.

“Of course, Daisy. **What do you want to watch?** ”

“Murder On The Orient Express.”

I sigh. _Of course_. “Not Nativity? Not Home Alone?”

“No! Murder!” There’s a pause, and then Daisy says, “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Mind what, Squashy?” I ask.

Shifting on her feet, she says, “That I’m weird.”

“You aren’t weird, my dear Daisy,” I tell her, taking one of her hands in mine and placing my hand on her cheek. As we are standing there, me looking down into her curious and intelligent blue eyes, I feel much older than my thirteen years.

This isn’t my job: I am supposed to be out with my friends, flirting with girls (or boys), performing on the school stage, messing about in my after school ballet classes, and studying for biology tests on the circulatory system. Instead, I am blowing off Alfred, Amanda and Harold seeing _Star Wars_ in favour of looking after my sister and helping her with her homework, having to skip the start of school show rehearsals to pick up Daisy from Deepdean and bring her to sit backstage while I rehearse, taking Daisy to my ballet classes and performing perfectly because I adore it when my sister looks at me like I am the best and most talented person she has ever seen, and staying up until midnight to study for a test because the time I should have spent studying was spent raising my baby sister.

I should care more than I do, leave Daisy to waste away in Fallingford while I live my life, but I cannot. I will spend my life scraping money from my mother’s purse (spare from spoiling men) to pay for all of Daisy’s birthday and Christmas presents, accompanying Daisy to the birthday parties of her friends and sitting with the adults in lieu of going to my own friend’s birthday sleepovers and laser quest parties, and teaching myself about murder cases and law proceedings to satisfy my sister’s odd need for a true crime story every night. I will do whatever it takes to give my sister the loving upbringing that I should have had.

“You’re wonderful.”


End file.
